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Remember Me rejected by publishers due to female protagonist

Remember Me's female protagonist Nilin made some publishers uneasy, both for sales and fears of making players feel "awkward" when she kisses a male character.

Remember Me is a cyberpunk adventure featuring a heroine named Nilin attempting to find her memories in 2084's Neo-Paris. The fact that Nilin is a "she" instead of a "he" caused reservations among publishers, though, as creative director Jean-Maxime Moris says some were unwilling to take on the game due to her gender.

"We had some that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'" Moris told the PA Report. He went on to describe that Nilin, at one point, would be seen kissing a male character, which made the publishers doubly uncomfortable. "We had people tell us, 'You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward.'

"I'm like, 'If you think like that, there's no way the medium's going to mature,' There's a level of immersion that you need to be at, but it's not like your sexual orientation is being questioned by playing a game. I don't know, that's extremely weird to me."

Moris said that making Nilin a woman was "not a decision" but rather simply "something that just felt right from the beginning."

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Steve Watts' youthful memories are are a blur of pixels, princesses, castles, and Mega Busters. After writing about games as a pastime for years, he got his first shot at a paid gig at 1UP. He's freelanced for several sites since then, and found a friendly home at Shacknews. His editorial duties include news, reviews, features, and lunatic ravings. He lives in the Baltimore-Washington area with his shockingly understanding wife.